Political Science: Open Education Resources

About Open Education Resources (OERs)

Openly accessible educational resources are a part of a growing movement to share knowledge and information in a freely accessible way, with limited to no restrictions. There are many repositories where you may search for course materials, textbooks, and Internet projects by subject.

Open Textbooks

Open textbook sites are committed to providing quality, affordable (often free), electronic textbooks and advocating for their creation and use by faculty. Adopting an open textbook for your course could save students hundreds of dollars and allow them the convenience of always having their textbook at their fingertips. Some sites offer the additional flexibility of adding to and editing these textbooks, meaning you could customize the content to meet your course objectives.

Orange Grove Texts is a joint initiative of the University of Florida Press and the Orange Grove (Florida's Digital Repository). They are committed to providing affordable, adaptable, digital texts for faculty and their students.

Open Courseware

Many universities have followed MIT's lead and model for OCW. Course materials are freely accessible but no certificates or degrees are granted by the institution. The intent is to share knowledge and resources with all who interested in learning.